fun with cade(s) in airports: holiday '08 edition

aka: no flight through DFW goes unpunished.

WITH DIAGRAMS!!

using the above diagram, follow along with our latest trip through the dallas/ft. worth airport terminal A.

A) arrive DFW via gate A20 at 8:15 am.

B) proceed to nearest food court to have some breakfast and wait until flight to st. louis at 12:30 pm.

C) after breakfast, realize there is a 9:25 am flight to st. louis. proceed to gate A24 to see if it's possible to get on the earlier flight. we are told it is possible, but that our luggage could not be transferred. we ultimately decide to stay with our original flight.

D) walk to gate A11, await original flight. at roughly, 12pm we board our plane. 25 minutes later, due to a leak in the hydraulic system, our plane has to be taken out of service. we are asked to deplane and await further instructions.

E) another plane is found, we are told to move to gate A26. at approximately 1:45, we are informed that our new plane, unfortunately, must ALSO be taken out of service. american airlines is sorry for the inconvenience and appreciates our patience.

F) yet another plane is found and we return to gate A11. they begin boarding at about 2:45 pm, but almost immediately pull the people off of the jet bridge citing the fact that maintence has not yet cleared this aircraft. they apologize for the inconvenience. 10 minutes later, american airlines tells us that our third time is not, in fact, a charm. this plane is also taken out of service. our continued patience is appreciated.

G) a fourth plane (as if there are any actually left in all of dallas) is found and we are instructed to move our stuff to gate A20. so, we chuckle briefly at the irony that this is the gate we originally arrived at and head over.

H) at 3:45 pm, we are told to move one last gate over to A21 and begin boarding.

at 4:05 pm, we finally depart DFW en route to st. louis. our bags are the first ones off the carousel.

happy holidays.

yankees sign 1B mark teixiera...

...cade finally gives up.

i haven't watched must baseball in the last couple of years.

even if the royals were worth paying attention to, i still would only get to see a handful of games. so, it's convenient that they are terrible.

and i have never fully bought in to the red sox while living here. i love going to fenway, but there is nothing about the team that calls to me (and for other reasons that i will get to in a moment.)

now...the much-hated yankees have spent almost a half a billion (yes...BILLION...with a "b") dollars on free agents and extensions this off-season to complement their already grotesque payroll*.

to say i'm sickened would be a horrible understatement.

this, of course, isn't an overnight phenomenon. but, for too long, i have overlooked the gross overspending in baseball today and chalked it up to "just the way it is." and as much as i hate the yankees, they aren't the only team ruining baseball. the red sox and even my second favorite team, the mets (not that it has done them any good), are also guilty of throwing silly amounts of money at players. and new clubs are crossing the $100 million threshold every year.

the point is, it's out of control. something needs to be done. baseball is not a game of the elite or privileged. it's a game of the common man. who can honestly find a hero in someone who whines and complains and gets their buddy scott** involved so that they can make even MORE of a ridiculous amount of money.

however you look at it, this over spending is an advantage that only a handful of teams have over the others. the pittsburgh pirates aren't going to magically come up with an extra $200 million to catch up with the yankees or the red sox. it's impossible. someone please explain to me how it is, therefore, not considered cheating. every team deserves the chance to compete or fail (depending on the competence of their general manager, of course) on the same level as every other team. it should be about smart decisions and talent management...not who can enable who to get the bigger house.

but more importantly...it's about the fact that no one needs to make $22 million a year. NO ONE. especially not athletes. it's ludicrous. it's vulgar. it's unethical.

sure, i will probably not give up completely on the game. i will probably still try and cross a couple of ballparks off of my list next year like i do every year, but that's a pride thing. i'm too close to quit now. but i'll be damned if i devote any more time and energy than that to the shallow shell that our nation's pastime has become.

implement a salary cap...or hemorrhage to death and start over, baseball. only one of these will bring me back.




* - with the signing of teixeira, and the recent aquisition of pitcher c.c. sabathia, the yankees now own the 4 highest paid players in the history of the game.

** - boras

no words

excercise your music muscle

there are the names of 74 bands in this picture.



how many can you find?

(i know that the image has been altered at the left...this is the only "full" version of the image i could find that was large enough to actually see.)